Expose article on dangers and misrepresentations of a number of new drugs - some points made:
1) - according to an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality report in 2001, More than 770,000 Americans die each year from drug complications.
2) - care patients don't need of failing to give care that is necessary accounts for an estimated 30% of the annual health care budget - more than 2.4 trillion dollars per year.
3) - Avandia, the diabetes drug made by GlaxoSmithKline was subject to 42 studies and a 2007 report by Dr. Steven Nissen which showed it plainly increased chances of heart attack and death. The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance says the company knew about the cardiac side effects for several years before this report was published.
4) - In 2002 JAMA published results of a huge study, called the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack, or ALLHAT, which showed that inexpensive generic drugs such as diuretics were just as effective as name brand drugs for controlling blood pressure. Eight years later, this study has hardly made a dent in the rate of prescriptions for expensive name-brand drugs for the same purpose.
5) - Many doctors do not understand the statistics for new drugs. Two numbers are critical - the NNT (number needed to treat) and the NNH (number needed to harm). For the statin drug Lipitor, 50 men would need to be treated for 5 years to prevent a single heart attack or stroke - yet they would all be exposed to potentially serious or fatal side effects, such as muscle breakdown and kidney failure.
60 - Doctors routinely prescribe antibiotics to treat strep throat for possible development of rheumatic fever. However, the NNT to prevent a single case of rheumatic fever is approximately 40,000 patients - it is a very rare complication. The NNH (number needed to harm) is only 5,000 due to the many fatal or near-fatal allergic reactions caused by antibiotics. In other words, 8 reactions - some fatal, would be expected to prevent only a single case of rheumatic fever.
The article does not lay blame into any one place - (Malpractice law,FDA, doctors, or the drug industry). But the essential tone is that many drugs, procedures, and treatments are either simple wastes of money or actually dangerous.